This invention relates to apparatus which accepts a record medium prepared with necessary data for billing a utility customer upon reading and entering through a keyboard a new meter reading.
Past efforts to provide a utility-meter reader with portable apparatus for entering a new meter reading and calculating the amount due since the previous meter reading have not been adopted for use by utility companies because of the limited time the meter reader has to cover his route. It would obviously take too much time for the meter reader to plug his portable apparatus into the meter for automatic reading. Consequently, the past efforts have been directed to apparatus into which the meter reader merely keys in the new meter reading, such as shown in U.S. Patent No. 3,590,220. However, that apparatus requires many manual operations to control the sequence of operations, thus burdening the meter reader to the point where he may require more time to complete his route. What is required is a fully automatic billing transactor which responds to the insertion of a previously prepared record medium, such as a billing card, to control the necessary sequence of operations, including the manual entry of a new meter reading, for the amount due to be calculated and for the transaction to be recorded on the record medium for immediate delivery to the customer as a "utility bill."